


The Dead Are Faithful

by emblazonet



Category: Elder Scrolls, Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind
Genre: Gen, Magic, Necromancy, religious devotion
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-02-27
Updated: 2016-08-28
Packaged: 2018-03-15 12:24:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 9
Words: 12,727
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3447092
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/emblazonet/pseuds/emblazonet
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Asthore Sadryon's family has come to ruin. While they leave Sadrith Mora, Asthore remains to pray at her grandmother's tomb. Her ancestors tell her to faithfully follow the Tribunal, but as Asthore will grow in lore and power, the lure of necromancy might prove stronger than her love of the Tribunal.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Beginnings

**Author's Note:**

> Asthore Sadryon is my favourite out of all my TES characters, a native Dunmer torn between Temple doctrine and the Telvanni pursuit of power through necromancy. I thought it was about time I wrote her story. In installments, as I rebooted her for a new playthrough.

"It was the Telvanni that ruined us," her father would say every so often under his breath, and Asthore would look up from her mending, or a book, or from lightly balancing flames on her fingertips. This was when she was still plump with youth and regular dinners. "We are Telvanni," she would say, and he would ignore her, which suited her fine. It was not being Telvanni that ruined the Sadryon family, it was a lack of business sense, and trouble that came of selling slaves on one side, and then dealing with Imperial business partners who did not like the slave trade on the other. Or perhaps if more in the family had possessed magical talent, their fortunes might have been different. As it was, their flow of gold was adequately dammed to a trickle, and all Sadryons felt their lives split into a 'before' and an 'after.'  
  
But for Asthore that lack, and the move from their manor to a little housepod outside Sadrith Mora proper—perched precariously over the rocks jutting from the Inner Sea—hardly registered, because her 'before' and 'after' had already happened. Her grandmother had died when Asthore was seventeen, and the shock still hadn't left her. Ten years later, the family fortunes had sunk. Her father blamed the Telvanni council and his business partners. Her six older brothers struggled to set up their families and keep them fed.  
  
Asthore felt as if someone had yanked her grandmother's funeral from the rest of time and isolated Asthore within it.  
  
For ten years, she only had to close her eyes, and she knelt by the bier while dim candlelight flickered. It was just Asthore in the ancestral tomb, lingering while others left, by her grandmother's body covered in a white sheet. Nestled by the covered head was that little icon inscribed on a shalk shell Grandmother Renthasa had always carried with her, an icon of the Tribunal, worn impossibly smooth by two centuries of stroking and touching.  
  
Renthasa Indoryon had been Indoril, had taught Asthore everything she could in the brief time they had together. Had loved the seventh child no one had had time for, and saw the spark of magic in her. "At least I know someone was born with my gifts," Grandmother would tell Asthore, stroking her hair, "I had thought there was something wrong with me, to have so many children and grandchildren who were not sorcerors." And Asthore would laugh and feel special and inhale Renthasa's bug musk perfume, sweet and safe.  
  
Then the blight came in on an ill wind, and stole away Asthore's grandmother.  
  
Asthore should have seen where her fate led all along. She was twenty-seven and otherwise a useless mouth to feed, even if she did mend everyone's clothes and keep the fire going and renew enchantments on the cold-box so that the food would not moulder. "We have a trade deal with the Hlaalu," said her father in the last days of Sun's Height, "we're moving to Vivec, to the Telvanni canton. I know this is an enormous change, but it is a tremendous opportunity. I promise we will find a good, advantageous match for you. You'll see, Asthore."  
     
Cold flooded her entire being. Move to Vivec? She had always wanted to see it—the moon improbably hovering, the shrines full of bright-eyed worshippers, to kneel at the temple of Vivec himself—but on her own terms, on pilgrimage. Not to be dragged there by her money-obsessed family, and then to be bartered off like a guar or an argonian. And what if her new husband would be Hlaalu? That was an indignity not to be bourne.  
  
It wasn't hard to slip away, to miss the boat at the last minute. She had only the clothes on her back and a pouch with no money. Sadrith Mora loomed alien and unfriendly all around her, this city she had known all her life.  
  
It was only natural to visit Grandmother first, in the tomb on the other side of the island. She laid petals and kresh fibres by Renthasa's ashpit, bowed her head, and prayed. It was dark all around her—the lone candle she had found in the tomb had long since burnt out. She kept vigil, thinking: every minute the ship takes my father and brothers farther away. My family is leaving, but I remain.  
  
Grandmother, what must I do?  
  
Hours, it was hours later—she realized muzzily that she had dosed off. She groped for the wall, and finding it, left, her feet dragging. I love you, she wanted to say into the dark, but found she could barely open her mouth. She needed a drink, but besides that, she could not comprehend her own emotions.  
  
The door groaned when she opened it. She stumbled wincing out into the daylight. A very different groan and a clacking to the side alarmed her. She stumbled. When had a tomb guard been animated? A skeleton advanced on her, armed with an old, shabby dagger and a battered round shield, both showing signs of rust. Somehow it did not recognize her for a Sadryon, or perhaps it was not one of her ancestors at all.  
  
She called within herself for fire and threw up her hands, but nothing happened. There was no time to gawk at her own failure. She turned and ran, tripped over the loose round stones. If not fire, if she could not summon a simple burst of flame, what could she do? Inside herself she still knelt, young and grieving, by the bier of her grandmother. Then, another ghost had come with anger in its soul, and—but that was a nightmare, wasn't it? That wasn't a true memory—  
  
There was a horrible 'gack', a sound made by a creature who could not breathe, and clatter of bones. Asthore turned to see the skeleton lumbering up to her, now an arm's-length away.  
  
"Help," she rasped, looking left and right. She threw out her arms even though the fire did not come.  
  
Again, desperately, she threw up her arms. Something twisted all around her, invisible and strange, pulling her skin taut—and her grandmother stepped out from nothingness. Renthasa's robes swirled like smoke. She raised her arms up to ward away the skeleton, and there was a strange thick smell, a tightness in the air, that told Asthore powerful magics were taking place.  
  
Asthore stood in shock for a moment, then ran forward unthinking. The air and the force of magicka around her guided her. The skeleton turned to her and she threw out her hand and fire burst out all around them, licking over the skeleton's yellowed bones, browning them, charring them. Her grandmother did not speak but made a gesture, crossing her fingers in a strange sign, and the skeleton stumbled back and fell soullessly to the ground.  
  
"Grandmother!" said Asthore, faltering, her hands warm from the flame and her heart sore from grief.  
  
In her dream-that-was-true-memory, when she had been seventeen, her grandmother's ghost had spoken to her, and told her to love the Tribunal, and to know herself loved, and then she had gone away. This ghost, this same ghost, almost invisible in the light of even the overcast day, said nothing now, only looked down sternly, and collapsed in on herself in a faint glitter of golden sparks.  
  
Asthore fell to her knees, mouthing a prayer. She barely knew which one. She was so grateful, so grateful, her breath came hard, and she was alive. The air stank of burned bone.  
  
Her living family had left her, but the dead were faithful. There would be choices to make, later, and this basic truth would inform all of them.


	2. Work

  
  
The price of the rusted iron dagger and heavy shield barely made up for the effort it took to drag them back into Sadrith Mora. Still, it was enough that Asthore could rent a private room at Fara's Hole in the Wall, enough that she could even buy a meal of peppered kwama eggs and cheap shein to wash it down with. In her temporary room, she threw the bolt, and turned to face bed, wardrobe, night-table, desk, the walls softened by worn rugs and tapestries.   
  
She raised her hand and concentrated. Flames sprouted from her fingers like flowers unfurling, and she threw little flickers across the room to light the candles on the desk. Fire came so easily to her when she was here, alone, in a room, safe. Furious with herself, Asthore blew out the remaining fire in her hand.   
  
She had trouble sleeping. The low murmurs of voices in the tavern section bothered her, as did the guards' calling of hours in the street below. She was not used to sleeping in the city, not anymore. She could not even hear the sea now, when it had lulled her to sleep for most of her life. When she closed her eyes, she was no longer kneeling in a tomb, locked into the past: now she saw the skeleton advancing with expressionless malice, felt her heart jar her chest, felt the fire turn to ash within her.   
  
Had her grandmother crossed through the Waiting Door from Oblivion because Asthore called her? Asthore had no memory of calling for her, or of saying any incantation meant to summon an ancestor—though she knew many. And Renthasa hadn't spoke! Still, it had been Renthasa, no doubt: the hair, the blazing eyes, the dated robe embellished like an Indoril gown with pointed metal plates on the shoulders, more jewellery than pauldron. And more than that, she'd felt like Renthasa. The smell and feel of her magic, that drumskin-taut simmering power, was unmistakeable.   
  
Yet Asthore wished Renthasa had spoken to her. Why hadn't she? Why?  
  
In the morning, Fara fed her a salad made with saltrice and kelp and a number of spices Asthore couldn't name offhand. "On the house," the Bosmer said in a voice that chirped like a sparrow's. "I know you haven't much money. You're young and spry. You should ask the Council for some work, because it's a hiring day. It'll be boring or hard, but I'll keep the room for you until dusk. After that, I'll rent it to someone else."  
  
Asthore asked, "Can I work for you?" but Fara shook her head. She had a barmaid already, Asthore knew, having seen her waiting the downstairs tables. Asthore bowed her head and mumbled her thanks.  
  
In the Council House, Mouths in their fine robes stood or sat on their podiums, looking bored and disinterested. One young Mouth sat on the edge of his podium, swinging his feet and tracing glowing letters in the air. He pointedly ignored Asthore, but watched her when he thought she wasn't looking. A few shabby mer like Asthore went from Mouth to Mouth, asking for work, but it was clearly not a busy day.  
  
Two older looking Mouths took pity on her. One gave her money to fetch sload soap, the other bade her collect muck. The others refused to pay attention to her.   
  
"Muck," said Asthore to herself, stopping on the winding bridge that joined the Council House to the rest of Sadrith Mora. She looked down at the humps of mucksponge clustered on the coast. Her lip curled involuntarily. She couldn't imagine herself wielding a muck shovel.  
  
To her vast relief, the apothecary beside Fara's Hole in the Wall sold sload soap and had plenty of muck. There was money left over, too. At the Council House, Asthore sat just outside the big chamber, counting coins into her purse. Copper and silver slid in with joyful clinks. A full two hundred septims, and it wasn't yet noon!   
  
She meant to go straight back to Fara's, but one of the secretaries, heart-faced, with a bug comb in her long red-brown hair, caught her sleeve. "Miss...?"  
  
"Asthore."  
  
"Miss Asthore, Mouth Ulessen has work for you."  
  
"Me? Me specifically?"  
  
The secretary laughed. "No, just for the first retainer I chance on. You happen to be the 'lucky' one today." Her eyebrows slanted upwards at 'lucky' and her mouth twitched. Asthore felt uncomfortably like she was missing vital information.  
  
Ulessen was a hard-faced mer who sighed frequently. She thrust down a bundle into Asthore's arms. "Please take these clothes to Mistress Therana in Tel Branora. Don't look at me like that, there's a ship in the harbour that leaves the day after tomorrow, and I expect you to be on it. Mistress Therana can be difficult. Do the best you can."  
  
The secretary beside Asthore cleared her throat.   
  
Ulessen sighed deeply, as if her heart were breaking, but she spoke with clipped indifference: "And do go down to the Temple folk. Here, take this chit. They'll give you some intervention scrolls, since I doubt you can cast any such spell." She wrinkled her nose. "Why are you still standing there? You have work to do!"  
  
"Thank you, Mouth," Asthore said and turned at once. Her humility scraped at her. Someday, she would stand on a podium and give orders. Then she wondered at herself. Was that what she wanted? Power? More than anything else in the world?  
  
Power.   
  
As she wound her way down into the bowels of the earth, the clothes draped over her arm and the chit in her hand, she thought about power. Yesterday, she wanted a direction. She wanted, if she would be honest with herself, her grandmother back. And like a child, she had wanted her family to stop, to stay in Sadrith Mora, to tell her that her opinions mattered. But her living family was nothing to her now. They had sullied themselves by commerce with outlanders and Hlaalu. The only family that mattered now were her ancestors.  
  
And today? Today Asthore wanted the skill to call fire at will, even in the thick fear of combat. Today, Asthore wanted to tell the Mouths to buy their own damn muck. She wanted to dismiss others as casually as she had been dismissed.


	3. Shipwreck

The next day was not a hiring day. Asthore, left to her own devices and overwhelmed by the crush of people, left Sadrith Mora by the northeast gate and walked over the hills and down to the coast. It was not yet noon when she reached the lapping water. Tiny crabs scuttled underfoot, and flies circled long strands of kelp and seaweed. Hiking up her robe, she balanced on long bleached driftwood logs that often washed up from the mainland. Some logs were too spongy to be safely walked on: fungal wood from emperor parasols.  
  
She stopped to eat some saltrice flatbread, and then began to practice a waterwalking spell she'd overheard once. How had it gone? It was the way you _looked_ at the water, felt and willed it to be solid as ice. In Sadrith Mora, where magic was common, even fishermer could walk on water, if they had the skill. Asthore plunged ankle-deep into the cold waters of the Inner Sea and soaked the hem of her robes. With a curse, she stomped up the coast and tried again, scowling at the waves.  
  
About an hour later her toes were freezing in their thin hide shoes. Asthore had walked a mile down the coast, stopping often to step into the water while muttering to herself. She could feel power inside her. It was like having a door in her belly, but it was locked and though she strained to open it, it held fast.    
  
When she looked up to glare across the scattered islands of Azura's Coast, she caught something across from her. An unusual shadow behind a tall, fat menhir-rock.  
  
She didn't need to waterwalk to get to it: a spit of land bridged the coast and the menhir. When she came closer, she found a shipwreck. It was a small vessel, perhaps a smuggler's craft, with room for a crew of no more than ten—and that's if they were crammed in. Asthore had no notion of how long it had been wrecked. It wasn't far from Sadrith Mora, so like as not it would have little cargo for plundering. Still, an opportunity was an opportunity, and Asthore was poor. Her stash of two hundred septims would feed her tonight, rent her room at Fara's until tomorrow, and then would buy passage to Tel Branora—but with little left over.  
  
There was little inside the craft. So it had been looted. She put fire into a cracked glass lantern she found on the deck. After a moment's squinting in the bottom deck, she found a tiny leather pouch tucked in a corner. Inside were fifty or so septims, thought it was hard to count by lantern-light. And at the prow, she found a skeleton.  
  
The ship—boat?—had been wrecked for long enough for the body to decompose. That wouldn't be too long, though: its flesh could have been eaten away by mudcrabs in a matter of days. By its hand, half-inside the ribcage, was a purse. A death-offering, or the skeleton's treasure? There were no signs on board to show whether the boat would have been crewed by Dunmer. Any looters would have left the skeleton in peace, for fear of disturbing an ancestor.  
  
Asthore smiled to herself. _Other_ looters did not have her skills. And perhaps she could not—yet—walk on water, but there were other things she could do.  
  
She set down the lantern and stood before the skeleton, arms lifted, palms raised. She breathed deeply, then drew symbols invisibly on the air. Ayem, Seht, Vehk. And then the triangle that held them.  
  
Renthasa had drawn the symbols in fire, but that had only been to illustrate the beginning of the ritual for Asthore. "Invoke the Tribunal for two reasons," she had said, the floating fire dancing over her fingers. Her veins were like a script beneath her skin. "First, to honour the Gods and the spirits and ancestors, and two, to remind yourself to think about why you are casting the spell. If your spirits and ancestors would not be honoured by the ritual, then do not perform it."  
  
Asthore did not know if her ritual would honour anyone, or if anyone would care, but what she did she did out of respect. And she was content.  
  
"There is a door, and I open the door," she intoned. "The door is opened. Step across the threshold."  
  
Ecclesiastical magic never felt like calling fire. Fire was visceral: fire flowed from her, it was like yelling, it was like throwing up her arms or dancing. But the ritual seemed to call nothing from her. Was it working? The ship creaked around Asthore and the bones as the water and wind rocked it gently.  
  
The ghost fluttered into being like a cobweb ripping in the wind, and like a cobweb it was faint and soft and barely visible by the wavering lamplight. It was impossible to make out its skin colour, and the tips of its ears were lost in shadow.  
  
"I have come," it rasped.  
  
"Who were you in life?" asked Asthore. Now that the ghost was here, she could feel the strain of the spell, the pull of power: her skin and muscles tightened around her temples, and she felt a slight wash of dizziness.  
  
"Abignail," said the ghost in its tinny, whispering voice, "only a man from the moor country. Unsuccessful smuggler, as it turned out."  
  
"Man, but not mer?" pressed Asthore.  
  
"I'm a Breton," said the ghost.  
  
Asthore relaxed, and felt a smile tug her mouth. "An outlander," she said in satisfaction, and broke the connection. It was like cutting a thread. Strength flowed back to her as the ghost disintegrated.  
  
The purse was a large one, almost more like a backpack. It took a few moments to wiggle it free of the ribcage. Asthore could claim it without sacrilege now, since it lay in the bones of an outlander and not a Dunmer.  
  
She opened it. Her lamplight reflected brightly over a collection of smooth blue and green gems. Some were opaque and streaked with milky whiteness, some were glassy and clear, and others a marbling of the two. It was not a fortune, and anyway Asthore would not sell them. "Soul gems!" she said happily to herself. Buried under the blue and green gems was a larger one, dark purple, striated faintly in crimson. That one would not be holding the souls of mudcrabs and nix-hounds. If and when Asthore ever learned how properly to trap a soul.  
  
She climbed out of the shipwreck with a lightness in her heart. This small windfall felt like a good omen, a promise, a gift from the ancestors or the Tribunal. She prayed as she walked along the beach back to Sadrith Mora, and the wind carried away her prayers.


	4. Molag Mar

"We've an overnight stop in Molag Mar," the sailor told Asthore as he pocketed her money. His skin was more charcoal than ash, and his shaved head was stubbled with startling white. "This isn't a really a passenger sort of vessel, but if the council sent you, well, that's not unusual. We have a free bunk with the rest of the crew for messenger-mer like you, if you need it."  
  
"Thank you," said Asthore softly. She placed one hand on the curving rail and looked out at the waters that glimmered with the dawn sun. The world was a soft wash of yellow and blue. She would have to get used to leaving quickly, she told herself. Her life had changed, and there would be travel.  
  
The future was too unsteady to think about for long. She turned to the sailor, and gave him an empty, social smile. "As it happens, I have business in Molag Mar also."  
  
He looked up from coiling rope. "Do you?"  
  
Asthore smiled a real smile, but that was for her own benefit. She all but forgot the sailor, the sun, the calls of cliff racers hunting for their breakfast. "At the Temple," she replied dreamily.  
  
The small ship cast off. Asthore stood at the rail for much of the trip, holding it for balance, watching Sadrith Mora shrink behind them. As the crew navigated the rocks and cliffs of Zafirbel Bay, coming close to and then keeping Vvardenfell's coast in sight, Asthore found she always had something to look at: from the occasional leaping fish, to the twisting arms of Telvanni settlements and far-off towers, to small fishing villages and huts on tiny islands. Fishing boats dotted the bay. A Daedric shrine hulked over the coast. Once, she saw a wizard walking over the water, and she flushed with jealousy.  
  
As Molag Mar came into view, the emperor parasols and dense kreshweed on the coast gave way to thorny scathecraw. Before Asthore had quite adjusted, the world became red and black and grey, arid and austere. Molag Mar rose above them, and Asthore caught her breath. The canton was magnificent, she thought, like an imperious beast protectively holding its children against the harshness of the Molag Amur. She could not wait to see its temple. She all but threw herself from the deck as soon as they were docked and hurried up the ramp onto the aged, sand-scoured walkway.  
  
Signs hung at intervals, or were carved into the stone, or were placards placed in ornamental flowerbeds, showing the way to the temple. The upward ramps and avenues were busy but not overfull: Asthore saw buoyant armigers in their pale chitin armour; merchants on the lower level with a packguar in tow; a multitude of dusty travellers, some of whom were clearly pilgrims clutching amulets; soldiers from House Redoran and House Telvanni and, once, from House Indoril; mercenary adventurers with a rough look in their eyes; and khajiit and argonian slaves cringing behind their masters. Once she saw two Ashlanders walking together, male and female, and the beads on their robes and skirts clinked musically.  
  
Everywhere was the sound of conversation, prayer, argument, haggling. The noise increased as she ascended. Open doors led into the warren of hallways in the canton, and, peeking inside, Asthore saw the gleam of lanterns and the flash of coin changing hands.  
  
It was like and unlike to Sadrith Mora: noisy but contained. It was such a dense and vertical way to live. Not even a wizard's tower was like this. Asthore felt very small, like she could easily fall into the dark cracks of the canton and never find her way out again.  
  
And, she reminded herself, her mouth dry with a sudden fear, this was only one canton. In Vivec, there were _many_. If she ever went to that holy city. She had never been more glad to have missed the ship that had taken her father and brothers away.  
  
At the top of the canton, the sky stretched over the open-air market. There was a cordoned-off section for slaves, several hostels with streams of mer entering in and out, tables and booths full of frying foods and religious icons and texts, the usual services of alchemists and petty enchanters, tinkers and repairmer. Behind thick walls, in the very centre of it all, was the temple.  
  
Asthore bowed before the doors.  
  
"Beneath the Ghostfence and the writ of the stars  
I look within and without for guidance.  
The song of Almsivi is the song of my spirit,  
My heart beats with the speech of the dead..."  
  
When she had finished the prayer, she took a deep breath, opened the heavy wooden door, and entered the temple. It was the first time she had ever entered a proper Tribunal Temple.  
  
Its spaciousness was the first thing she noticed. The air was still and quiet, and smelling sweetly of resins. The ash pit at the centre was surrounded in nearly a hundred candles, their wax dripping over its ridges, pooling onto the ash itself. Rugs covered the floors, tapestries hung on the walls. On the far wall, a mural showed St. Veloth leading the chimer, and when Asthore stepped softly and reverently over to it, she saw it was a mosaic, made of bone and obsidian and gold. She reached out a hand and pulled it back.  
  
"It is wondrous, isn't it?" the voice was more whisper than rasp.  
  
Asthore turned, her heart thudding in her chest, as if she were a child who had been caught coveting a sweetmeat. "Yes," she breathed.  
  
The mer that stood before her was dressed in a robe covered in golden chains and chitin embellishments. His hair was pulled into a high tail, and his face was seamed with age. He wore the bone amulet of a temple master, and she bowed at once on seeing it.  
  
"I am Tharer Rotheloth," he said. "I have not seen you here before."  
  
"Master Rotheloth, it is an honour to meet you," she said. And then, before she could lose her nerve or his attention, she blurted, "I'm Asthore Sadryon, and I want to join the Temple!"  
  
"My dear, you are already part of the temple, through your faith and your ties with your ancestors," said Master Rotheloth, but before Asthore could clarify, he tilted his head and narrowed his eyes briefly. "But you have the wish to devote yourself."  
  
"Oh yes," breathed Asthore.  
  
"Come with me," said Master Rotheloth. He led her to the left, where a bookshelf was full of hide- and cloth-bound volumes. He plucked one small reddish leather book from a row of identical books, all battered and dog-eared. He put the book in her hands, and her hands shook so hard she almost dropped the book. Over the top, in flaking gold-stamped letters, it read 'The Pilgrim's Path.'  
  
"You cannot join the priesthood without performing the Pilgrimage of the Seven Graces," he said. "Keep the book until you no longer have need of it."  
  
She nodded and opened the book. There were smudges and writing where annotations had been made by pilgrims before her. 'To touch the trioleth is to be 1 with the ancestors', read one prominent annotation. She paged through the book, which was barely larger than her hands, her heart and mind leaping with excitement to see the fabled names: the Fields of Kummu, the Puzzle Canal, the Mask of Vivec. She longed to go so badly her whole body thrummed with wanting.  
  
She looked up after a moment to see Master Rotheloth smiling at her. "I think," he said in his slow, measured way, "that you will be a credit to the temple. Best of luck on your travels, Asthore Sadryon. May Almsivi watch over you and ward your road."  
  
Asthore put the book in one of the big pockets of her robe. She bowed with her palms together. "Three blessings to you, Master," she whispered.  
  
He nodded to her, and walked away.  
  
The rest of the day she spent in the temple, sitting by the ash pit and thinking, praying, or studying The Pilgrim's Path. At dusk there was a service, and another priest led it. About fifty Dunmer came, fitting comfortably into the room, though if there had been many more, it would not have been so comfortable. "Mercy, Mastery, Mystery," chanted the faithful, and Asthore raised her palms from where she knelt among them, and felt herself transcendent.  
  



	5. Tel Branora

Asthore came to Tel Branora by noon of the next day, sailing into its shabby port down the slope from the mighty tower. Asthore kicked pebbles underfoot as she hurried up the road. There was an encampment far up the island, opposite the tower, with pennants half-heartedly shrugging in the breeze, and Asthore couldn’t tell how many mer were there, though she could see the yellowed glint of bonemold armour.   
  
She made her way through the mushroom streets, trying not to gawk as she had in Molag Mar. It wasn’t so hard: Tel Branora was like a smaller, more vertical Sadrith Mora. Unlike Molag Mar, it had a more manageable number of outlanders; that was to say, few of them. No one seemed terribly concerned by the armoured encampment: what rumours she heard of it, as she climbed the springy mushroom stairs past the market district up to the main tower’s front door, was that it had been there awhile.

Entering the tower was not especially difficult. She held the package of clothes for Therana in her arms and could have been any delivery mer, come to the tower on another’s orders. She _was_ that mer, she reminded herself. _She_ knew she was destined for greatness. It was only the others that didn’t know. She was… undercover. They would underestimate her, all the Telvanni, until she proved by power and force that she was better than all of them.   
  
Lost in dreams of her future grandeur, she had barely paid any attention to her surroundings. She had been in and out of mushroom dwellings all her life, and they tended to be similar. With half a mind she’d asked for directions to the upper tower, and been directed through some tunnels, out onto a stair winding about the exterior— comfortably warded from the winds by pods and fungal growth—and back inside.

The sharp sulfuric stench of rotting kwama egg assaulted her nose. Gagging, she turned and nearly went back out, never to return. Morbid curiosity forced her to turn. Eggs, everywhere. Eggs parading down stairs and lining tunnels, eggs tracing a table’s circular surface. Wax dripped onto egg candle-holders. A fresh kwama egg, still in its shell, should have no smell; edible but aged kwama eggs grew more pungent as time went on. But even poorly-stored kwama eggs should keep for nearly half a year, and by the age and yellowy-black stains over the shells, especially those with cracks, some of these kwama eggs had been there for much longer than that.  
  
A Dunmer with spiked brown hair and a neat goatee looked up from the egg-encircled table, where he’d rested a book and several flasks. He was the only mer in the room. “You’re still there.”

“I was sent…” said Asthore, and choked.

“I barely notice the smell anymore,” said the mer and laughed. “Let me guess. That’s the new clothing Fulissa Ulessen was to provide. A week late, but that’s hardly your fault.”

Asthore breathed carefully through her mouth. “You are correct. Can you direct me to Mistress Therana’s chambers?” she asked. “Please?”

The mer looked down at his book and sighed. “I’ll take you there myself. I need to return this to Felen.”

“Felen?”

“The best conjurer in House Telvanni, short of the Archmagister probably. Working on an experiment at the moment. I’m Mertisi Andavel, anyway.”

“Asthore Sadryon.”

“Sadryon… Sadryon… the trading family? I’m guessing your grandfather was Master Neloth’s old Mouth.”

Asthore blinked at Mertisi. “Yes, he was. How did you know?”

Mertisi shrugged as he led her up a sloping passageway. “He taught seminars here, once in awhile. Powerful conjurer. Heard there’s no more magic in the family. Terrible shame.”  
  
“I have magic!” snapped Asthore.

“Do you?” said Mertisi laconically. “Well, here we are. You’ll want to turn right when you get up, I’ll be going left.”

Asthore looked up, following Mertisi’s gaze. Up, and up, through the shaft to the barely visible passages above. “Ah,” she said. “Yes. Levitation. Is required.” Inside, she swore passionately: she hadn’t brought a potion or a scroll or even a malfunctioning half-broken amulet. She’d just straight up forgotten. She’d just _assumed_ , like some halfwit fetcher, that she could saunter right up to Mistress Therana like she had the Mouths in the Council House.

Mertisi’s arched eyebrows arched even further as he took note of her hesitation. “So, Mage Asthore Sadryon, can you even cast a simple levitation spell?”

“I’m… not as well-versed in the School of Alteration,” said Asthore quickly, feeling her cheeks burn.

“Well, what school are you well-versed in? You’re Telvanni, child. You _should_ be able to levitate at will.”

Asthore glared at him. “Well, I can’t,” she admitted, almost growling. “But I’ll set you aflame if you insult me again!”

Mertisi rolled his eyes and held up his palms. “Prickly little thing, aren’t you? All right, all right, I’m sorry I offended our new Archmagister.” He bowed shallowly, and smirked at her when she glared more fiercely. “Here, I’ll cast a levitation charm on you, and you’ll deliver those clothes, and there’ll be peace between us, all right?”

Asthore pursed her lips, then nodded reluctantly.

Mertisi muttered something under his breath and gestured once towards her. The air shimmered in a purple haze that pooled like mist beneath her, and then she was floating. When she looked directly down at it, the air was colourless; she could only see the shine of magic when she looked at it through the corner of her eye.

Mertisi floated up beside her, cross-legged in the air, rather like an icon of Vivec, only much less impressive. Asthore did not feel nearly comfortable enough to sit in nothingness; her legs were bent and ready in case the spell just dissolved beneath her.

They reached the top of the shaft without incident, however. Mertisi saluted her impudently and set off down the left passage, leaving Asthore to walk down the right. In her rage, she’d forgotten to pay attention to the horrible smell of rotten kwama egg: now that she was less distracted by impertinent stuff-shirt mages, the smell reasserted itself. Her nose wrinkled.

It would be terrible form to greet a Telvanni Master with a wrinkled nose, especially since it seemed Mistress Therana liked having her tower filled with a stomach-churning miasma, so she forced her face into neutrality. A Telvanni Master needed a politician’s polite face, she told herself. Or else powerful enough fire magic to blast arrogant fetchers like Mertisi in the face.

But a priestess should be serene. Asthore breathed in kwama eggs and prayed to the Tribunal that she wouldn’t have to stay long.

Therana’s chambers were at once shining and squalid. Asthore’s jaw nearly dropped, because it was not what she expected at all. The room was scooped into the side of the tower, layered with once-fine carpets mouldering and dust-laden. A fire at the back of the room consumed books and one blackened log. Crystals stuck out of the wall at odd angles, two large, many small. Some contained their own wavering light, making the whole room shimmer as if the room were underwater and the sun was shining brightly into it. A khajiit slave hunkered by the fire, nude and shivering.

Therana got up from her chair, letting the octavo in her hands fall to the ground, its pages crumpling on the floor. She dressed finely in a golden robe hung with chains, but something about the fit was—off. She was a thin withered woman with ginger hair piled messily on her head. Rows of pale scarification traced her brow lines and the steep lines of her cheeks.

“Are you here to feed the spiders?” she demanded, in a voice low and resonant.

“I—no. I brought you clothes, Mistress,” said Asthore, sketching a hasty bow.

“Clothes! Cursed clothes! I told that Fulissa not to go trading with mudcrabs, they’ve all got it in for me, haven’t they? My, you’re a young one.” She licked her cracked lips, narrowed her eyes, and stepped up to Asthore to grab her by the chin. Therana tilted Asthore’s head this way and that, nodding to herself. “There are doors that wait for you. Pah.” She stepped back and spat on the floor. Behind her, the khajiit flinched. “You want to give me those clothes? Prove the mudcrabs haven’t laced it with poison. Put it on, mageling.”  
  
“I hardly think that would be appropriate,” said Asthore, feeling rather dizzy. Her skin prickled. The thought of disrobing before the old, withered mage made her feel nauseous.  
  
“Then return to that Fulissa and tell her you’ve failed me. It matters not.” Therana turned and faced her chair, her back to Asthore, and picked up the octavo and began to set its pages straight.  
  
Asthore cast about the room, only half aware she was hugging the package to herself. “Hey, khajiit. Come here,” she ordered.

The slave, shivering and hugging himself, came hesitantly forward. “What do you wish of this one?”

“You’re Therana’s slave, you try these on.” She thrust the package into the khajiit’s arms. He was a scrawny old thing with matted brown fur and white about his muzzle. There were furless whip scars along his torso and arms.

“As the young mistress commands,” he mumbled, and fumbled on a radiantly purple skirt. The dye must have been made from kagouti snails, vicious sea snails that were most commonly found off Azura’s Coast. Kagouti snail dye was one of the goods her father hoped to trade to the treacherous Hlaalu.

Therana looked over her shoulder, like a child peeking at a surprise. Suddenly she screeched and fire burst all around them. Asthore yelled and jumped back, pressing herself against the curving wall. Crystals prodded her back uncomfortably.

But Therana’s target wasn’t Asthore. She threw fistfuls of fire at the poor khajiit who wailed and launched himself for the corridor. As he leapt for the threshold, fire jumped up all around him—Asthore recognized the pattern of the scarlet-blue flames: Therana had triggered a ward she’d laid. The khajiit screamed, and screamed, and Asthore shrunk against the wall, and the khajiit screamed, blackening, the skirt and his fur burning away, the air full of the stench of burning fur, burning fabric, and worst of all, burning flesh.  
  
Therana had already turned away and was seated primly in her chair, her lips moving as she read from the octavo.

Eventually, the screaming stopped. Asthore felt as if someone had scooped out her insides. She took a trembling step forward. Therana pointedly ignored her. Asthore fled the chamber.

For a moment she crouched by the khajiit, her hand resting just above his charred corpse. She wasn’t sure what she meant to do. She had no magic for raising the dead, only raising ghosts. And there was no need to summon the khajiit’s ghost. She didn’t even know his name.

“I wouldn’t feel too badly for it, Sadryon,” called a voice from an alcove down the hall. Mertisi. “They beg Therana to kill them long before she grants them death.”  
  
Asthore scrambled to her feet and jumped down the nearest shaft. She knew a slowfall chant, but it usually didn’t work: to her profound relief, she’d no sooner said the words and called the power within her than her descent slowed, and she drifted jerkily to the ground.

She straightened and all but ran out of the tower, slowing when she saw people watching her to a more dignified stride, but bolting when she thought she was alone. Once she was at ground level, she ran across the mushroom bridge to the island, down the pebbly beach, skidding on the smooth round rocks, to the docks, and there she waited, panting and shivering and fighting down nausea. She retched and threw up off the docks several times before the boat that was headed for Sadrith Mora was ready to cast off.


	6. Return to Sadrith Mora

It took twice as long to sail back to Sadrith Mora. The wind was against them, the waves were against them. Asthore bunked with the crew down in the belly of the ship where it stank of sweat, of irregularly washed flesh, and of food half rotting. The hammock swayed, and Asthore turned over and over, half-awake, thinking about flames and the stench of burning fur. I want to be powerful, she yelled in dreams as faceless, robed mer lifted their fingers and pointed to her. I want to be powerful, she screamed as her flesh blackened and melted away.

She woke, drenched in sweat. There were footsteps above her and the ship rocked alarmingly. They had docked. She stumbled out of the ship. “Three watch you,” said the friendly sailor, ropes in hand, with a broad smile. Did he want anything? She bowed politely and hurried away, down the long wood docks, and up the slope to the Council House.

Mouth Ulessen laughed when Asthore told her what had happened at Tel Branora. Asthore thought there was more exasperation than real humour in that dry guffaw. She said, “How unfortunate for the slave.” Asthore, her nose suddenly full of the stench of burned fur, shuddered. Ulessen did not notice. “Well, you did the best you could, I suppose.” She heaved a sigh, her shoulders hunching as she did.

Asthore shot a quick look around the round, airy council room. One councillor, an old thin mer in a gold-and-violet robe and hands that shook always, had no visitors and was glaring at Ulessen.

Asthore turned back as Ulessen pulled a purse from the chest by her chair. She tossed it to Asthore, who bowed very low in thanks. “Have you any more work for me?” she asked.

Ulessen conjured a ball of flame in her hand and began to shape it, pulling flames this way and that with her fingers. She looked at the old mer in the gold-and-violet robe. “No, no, carry on, Asthura.”

“Asthore, sera,” said Asthore, doing, she thought, a very good job of disguising her scorn. Ulessen did not appear to have heard, so Asthore turned with as much as dignity as she could muster and walked slowly from the council hall.

At Fara’s, in her newly re-rented room, she found she had a full seven hundred septims, and she nearly cried. That was enough, she thought. She could buy passage to Vivec, and travel across the Ascadian Isles to the Fields of Kummu, and then north to Gnisis—she traced her finger over the sketchy map in The Pilgrim’s Path. What would the Ascadian Isles be like? Talk said they were far more lush than Azura’s Coast, and it was getting on to Second Seed, when the air would be thick and humid, and the plants would burst to full luxuriance. She would spend the summer, she thought, crossing Vvardenfell Isles-to-West-Gash, so that by the time she was ready to move inwards to Ghostgate, it would not be so searing upon the foyadas that her skin would burn away.

She remembered her dream, and flinched, and thought instead of Vivec.

She would save Vivec for last. She would glimpse it at the beginning, from the outside, and when she had travelled north and south again, she would enter the holy city. If she should run into her family, she would have pilgrimages and experience under her belt. Her feet would be rough with travel, her heart would be full of the Tribunal, and her mind would be honed by danger. No bonds would hold her, and she would be a priestess.


	7. Sea-route to Vivec

On the first day out to sea, Asthore decided she hated boats and everything to do with them. The ten crewmer called the boat a 'barque.' It had three main masts and the distinctive curled-up bowsprit of a Telvanni vessel, and it was bigger than the boat she'd taken to Tel Branora. Asthore and five others bunked with the crew, their hammocks squished amid tall stacks of crates and barrels and baskets holding coils of rope or salted fish and scuttle. There was no privacy, no quiet, and very little to do. Asthore's nightmares did not go away: she forced herself to stay awake the whole first night, shivering or too hot in turn.

It rained for two solid days as they rounded Vvardenfell, passing by the many islands that radiated from the coast like the beaded fringe of a shawl. The clouds hung low but the rain was not especially heavy. The second night Asthore slept better in that she slept at all, in fits and starts. On the third day the sun came out even while it rained. Asthore leaned on the rail near the curled bowsprit. A shimmer of rainbows refracted through the drops. Asthore watched them play over the back of her hand and felt a bit better. 

That night the clouds cleared to show the Shadow overhead. It was the Feast of St. Meris, and everyone but the on-duty crewmer sat down to eat together under the sky. Comberry vinaigrette was drizzled on saltrice flatbread and a slightly-wilted salad. The ship's captain led prayers afterwards. Read them, more like; from a battered little octavo half torn and stained from years at sea. He has only half-literate, thought Asthore, as he stumbled over his recitation of St. Meris standing amidst the bloodied wounded, their wounds gleaming with the blue glow of her magicka.

Two cloaked mer stood aside: it was only later, when several sailors started up dancing and singing, that Asthore realized why. They were Ashlanders, who set their long ashen cloaks aside to show they wore the thickly fringed hides and shalk-shell ornamentation common to the Erabenimsun. The younger mer brought out a drum, and when a lull came in the festivities, the elder stood up to sing.

It was throat-singing, but not the kind Asthore was familiar with. Throat-singers often gathered at the night market in Sadrith Mora. Much of it was rhythm and melody, a focus on the breath, sometimes a competition to see whose breath was strongest: but these guttural tones were _words_. The mix of archaic Dunmeris and the Erabenimsun dialect was hard to follow. Asthore could only catch every third word or so, enough to get the gist: it was a song about the how the lava had cooled to form the landmarks of the Erabenimsun lands. The next song was about a lad who missed his girl, who had married an ashkhan from another tribe. 

When their performance was over, a sailor pulled out her rough corkbulb flute and started a lively dance. Asthore, terribly impressed by the throat-singer, dodged leaping mer to sidle up beside the elder Ashlander. He resettled his cloak and clasped it with shalk-shell hooks, his red-dyed braids stirring in the breeze.

"Your music is excellent," said Asthore, hardly able to look him in the face. It was ridiculous for her to feel shy, but there she was, looking at his seamed hands instead.

"My thanks," said the Ashlander, neither warm nor forbidding.

"The singers in Sadrith Mora do not form words in their throat," said Asthore.

The Ashlander shrugged. He was looking off at the star-speckled water. "You housemer are forgetful. And you are too busy playing with the lutes the Empire sold you."

"We invented lutes just fine on our own!" cried Asthore, stung. She liked lute-music.

The Ashlander raised his red-dyed brows at her. "Perhaps that is so," he said. "We Erabenimsun praise the throat and the drum. You housemer praise the lute and the flute and the gull's voice."

"Gull's voice?"

The Ashlander snorted in amusement. "That is how we call your housemerish singing. Like the thin-voiced gull, an air-voice."

Heat rose in Asthore's cheeks. "I only meant to compliment your singing!" she cried.

The Ashlander settled his elbows on the rail of the barque. "And you have," he said. "Are you a singer, then? Do you sing with a gull's voice? Is this an insult to you?"

This calm reaction threw Asthore. She said, half-stuttering, "I'm a pilgrim. I-I can't sing."

He turned his head and she fidgeted with her belt-sash. After a moment he said, "Your robe is new, and you've the voice of Sadrith Mora. Your shoes are barely travelled in. You're young and the sun has not taken liberties with your face. You're a prideful thing, for a fresh pilgrim on her first journey."

Asthore glared at him, speechless.

"May Azura guide your journey," he added. 

It was a dismissal every bit as strong and commanding as Mouth Ulessen's. Asthore resisted the urge to spit at his feet. She turned on her heel and stalked past the dancers and the flautist, down into the hold, and flung herself into her hammock. She brooded herself into sleep, despite the noise above. 

On the third day of Second Seed, the barque made port at the docks of Vivec. Asthore stumbled down the short gangplank, rubbing sleepiness from her eyes. The walkway along the water was stained in mud and bird droppings and bordered in barnacles; it swayed under her feet like the ocean. Somewhere along the voyage, Asthore had gained her sea-legs; now, it seemed, she would have to lose them. She followed directions a sailor gave her, threading her way through the overwhelming maze of docks. Only when she stepped up onto the cobblestones of the port did she look around.

The mighty cantons reared like mountains over the roofs of the port district. They were much, much larger than Molag Mar, and brighter too, and there were bridges like filigree between them, and banners of all colours and sizes fluttering on the breeze.

Don't gawk, she told herself. But it was hard not to; even the port district seemed huge to her. She felt as if the buildings stretched on forever. Packguars and guar-drawn wagons surrounded her, and mer with poles over their shoulders from which dangled baskets and bundles and charms, and a bewildering array of foreigners in strange fabrics and cuts. Children ran underfoot. Asthore kept her purse close; if Sadrith Mora had not prepared her for the sheer vastness of Vivec, it had at least taught her never to trust an urchin.

Her heart cried out to go to the cantons and seek the holy places; but her heart also quailed at the size and bulk. Later, she reminded herself. First she would find the hostel the sailor had told her about, the Starred Mantle, and tomorrow she would leave for the Fields of Kummu. Now she was truly a pilgrim.


	8. To the Fields of Kummu, part 1

The Starred Mantle was clean, which was about the only compliment Asthore could give it, and that was only if you didn’t look in the corners. Otherwise it stank of stale greef and shein and sweat amongst other disreputable odours. It was dimly lit, and there were no private rooms. She slept on a mat in a room that was more like the belly of the ship she’d come in on than it was like Fara’s.

The next day she fastened her possessions to her person: her purse went inside the deep pockets of her robe, and _The Pilgrim’s Path_ went in her satchel, along with her second robe. She spent a dizzying time in the port market, haggling for a staff. She came away feeling grateful she’d survived the experience but had a hard wooden staff to show for it, its top snake-shaped in a common sign for protection. The silver gilt that had once coated it was mostly tarnished or worn off in spots, but she could tell it was real silver. It was enough to ward off unhappy ghosts if she should encounter any (probably), and the wood was heavy enough to thump anything foolish enough to come after her.

She hoped, anyway. She knew a little bit about staff fighting, but she wasn’t entirely sure of her skills. At any rate, she was unlikely to run into much trouble on the very settled Ascadian Isles.

She left the Vivec port district by midmorning, on the road that passed by little houses squatting in that strange Hlaalu style. The wind was a soft breath through the grasses and kreshweed and reeds, riffling the stoneflowers that seemed to reflect the sky. Asthore set off at an easy loping walk.

By noon she was as far inland as she’d ever been. She had to loosen her scarf, and then add it to the sash on her waist. Her armpits were slick, and sweat beaded on her forehead. There was no wind now, and bees and other insects droned loudly all around her. The houses were less dense; and beyond the road and fences were seemingly-endless spreads of neat saltrice and wickwheat fields. Some were worked by Dunmer, who sometimes called out, “Hello there, sera,” or “Blessings of the day, pilgrim!”, and other fields were worked by beast slaves who never said anything, and who seldom looked up.  
  
Asthore was far from the only traveller. Most were native Dunmer, but she saw more outlanders that day—port-visitors and road-travellers—than she ever had in her entire life. Colourfully-clad Redguards, sweating Nords, those overly-chatty Imperials—their mannish faces were inscrutable to her. She hated the Hlaalu casually, for being on such good terms with these folk. It wasn’t right.

The afternoon shadows were lengthening when she came to a crossroads where a guar caravan had spread their goods under an awning on a little field in the V of the roads. “Greetings, sera, come, toast the end of the day with us with fine spiced teas from Blacklight!” The speaker, a darkish Dunmer with strong Velothi features, waved her arm and beckoned.

“I’m travelling to the Fields of Kummu,” Asthore said, hoping to deter them. Another merchant had popped out from a tent, her arms full of textiles.

“That’s not so far you need to hurry, and you’ll not make it tonight anyway,” said the second merchant. “Before the sun goes down, come see, I have the finest silk embroidery from Necrom.”

“I wouldn’t have the coin to buy it with,” said Asthore.

“That’s no matter,” said the first merchant. “Tea’s on us if you’ll tell us a tale. It’s damned boring on this road, I’ll tell you, and we’ll be moving off Vivec-wards soon enough.”

“I saw plenty of travellers,” said Asthore.

“None that would share a drink with us,” said the second merchant, pulling a face of exaggerated sorrow.

Asthore’s feet were tired from so much walking on the rough paved roads of the Isles, and she could catch the spiced scent of tea already brewing over the fire by the awnings. Strong stuff, to have overpowered the smell of the four guar. “Very well,” she said.

There were three merchants total, and they eagerly offered her a mug of tea. She cupped the uneven rough redware in her hands, grateful for the warmth of it despite the heat of the day; there was comfort in a drink with strangers. The first merchant was Tildas; the second, Rilvu; and the last, a young lanky youth named Thervam. Tildas and Rilvu’s son, as it were. They also showed her their wares despite her protestations, and she politely admired them, running Necrom silks and scraps of Mournhold tapestry through her fingers. They were very nice, but not the equal of the fine works Telvanni wizard-lords made their robes from.

“A pilgrim with an accent from Sadrith Mora, now that’s unusual,” said Rilvu, ladling more tea into Asthore’s mug.

“They’re godless out there, aren’t they?” asked Thervam. Asthore recalculated his age: his breaking voice and childish cadence put him in the midst of puberty, she thought.

Tildas made a hissing sound and scowled at him. “Don’t be rude.”

“Telvanni care little for the Tribunal, that’s true,” said Asthore, thinking of the temple half-buried beneath the Council House. “But my mother was Indoril, of a noble lineage, and my ancestors made sure I would not forget my duty to the Three.”

Rilvu nodded. “This is your first pilgrimage?”

Asthore nodded stiffly. She did not want to let these strangers know how new she was, either to this side of Vvardenfell or to being a pilgrim at all.

But Rilvu, it seemed, saw right through her. “Do you have a map?” she asked. Asthore brought out her _Pilgrim’s Path_ without even realizing how instinctually she had reacted to Rilvu’s brisk imperative. She flipped through the pages to the section on the Fields of Kummu, indicating the rough-drawn map of the Isles.

Rilvu shook her head, sending her braids flying. She _tsked_ and said, “That won’t do, look that route they’ve outlined goes the long way.”

Tildas peered at the map over Rilvu’s shoulder. “Also, that’s a toll-bridge.” She grabbed a twig from the fire and made a charcoal smudge over a squiggly water-line on the map. “It should be illegal but technically the bridge is on Arano property. Dren’s got Direr Arano by the balls, somehow—so I’ve heard—and all the money ends up in Dren’s pockets. So don’t take that road!”

Rilvu said, her finger sliding across the map, “Cross here—it’s about a three mile walk north from our camp here. You’ll have to ford the water, but it’s only about calf-high at the deepest. You’ll be pretty near the Dren Plantation, so you might see guards. Don’t worry, you’re not on their property, they can’t enforce anything, and anyway, you’re a pilgrim so even if you do accidentally trespass somewhere, you’re unlikely to get into trouble.”

“They’d try something if you were an outlander though,” said Thervam cheerfully. “Like gut you.”

Asthore stared at him as his mothers turned as one to hiss disapproval through their teeth.

“They wouldn’t do that even if you were,” said Tildas firmly.

“Thervam, get me my inkwell and quills,” said Rilvu with iron in her voice. “If it’s all the same to you, friend, I’ll fix up your map and add some extra advice on the other routes. I’ve been up to Koal Cave, you know.”

Asthore allowed her face to relax into a smile. “I’d like that,” she said. “Thank you. I’ll offer up prayers for you when I reach each shrine.”

“We would appreciate that,” said Tildas.  
  
The sun was entirely gone by the time Rilvu had finished making her annotations. She set the book down by the fire to let the ink dry. “Now then, we’ve given you tea and advice, I think it’s time for that tale I asked you for.”

“What sort of tale would you like?” asked Asthore. Her heart quickened. She wasn’t used to telling stories, she wasn’t… wasn’t a minstrel. But a priestess benefitted from an orator’s skills, she reminded herself. This was… a learning opportunity. She took a sip of the tea for fortification. It had gone cold, and the spicy dregs were thick on her tongue.

“You said your mother was an Indoril noble,” said Tildas, “I don’t know anything about Indoril nobility!”

“Oh that,” said Asthore. “Well, her family had fallen on hard times…”

“‘Oh that,’” teased Tildas. “That’s a great start to a story—a family, fallen to ruin. Good stuff.”

Asthore sucked in a breath, and smiled again. “Before my mother was of marriageable age, the harvests began to fail. She was a fifth daughter of an Indoril noble, who could trace his lineage to Lledrusa Indoril—a great Indoril war-leader of the second era—but the line became somewhat diluted. Suffice to say, minor nobility.

"The household could not sustain itself. Servants were let go. I don’t know the specifics—I’ve never been to my grandfather’s land, because he died of a bitter fever, and my grandmother Renthasa sold it all away. Her youngest daughter, my mother, married my father for money. He was a wealthy trader based in Sadrith Mora, where his family had lived for—eons. Their family tomb is north of the city on the coast.”

“A Telvanni?” asked Tildas.

“Yes and no,” said Asthore. “His family was, but he never wanted much to do with them.” She spat into the fire. “He is a prideful oathless worm.”

Rilvu snorted. “Sounds like my father.”

“So my grandmother Renthasa and my mother moved into Sadrith Mora—”

“Just like that?” asked Tildas.

Asthore blinked. “I… suppose? I mean, they had to cross the drought-ridden Indoril lands—north of Mournhold, to the coast where a ship would take them to Sadrith Mora. They rode in one of my father’s caravans—guar caravaners, like yourselves—and my mother and grandmother were bourne in a palanquin.”

Rilvu laughed and slapped her knee. “That’d be a sight! And what a nightmare. That’s worse on your stomach than a boat. Swaying on guarback? In a big wooden box?”

“Not to mention claustrophobic,” said Tildas, grinning.

Asthore snuffed out the rage that lit like a candle inside her as they laughed at her story. She was embarrassed. She didn’t know if there had been a palanquin involved, but she thought she’d spruce up the story, and now she had made her family sound foolish. Hastily she added, “My father wanted to make sure they were treated according to their rank. Even if they were penniless.”

“So why didn’t he marry for more money? Why your mother?” asked Tildas. “Was it for love?”

“Love and—politics.” Asthore frowned. That was a question she herself had asked once. “I think it was because my grandmother had some kind of knowledge that was extremely beneficial. Trade secrets, at least, at that time. She conducted secret meetings between Telvanni and Indoril nobility, and her name opened doors to my father so that he could build his fortunes higher.

"But it’s true, too, that my mother loved him. I don’t know why.”

Tildas’s grin got wider as she gazed sidelong at Rilvu. “No one knows how love works.”

Asthore shrugged. Love was something owed to the ancestors and to the Tribunal, in exchange for guidance and protection and nurturing; romance was a mystifying other that seemed to be a choice of loins over willpower.

“Well, that’s a family story worth two cups of tea,” said Rilvu agreeably, “and the map annotations, I suppose. Should we encounter you again, we’ll want to hear stories of your pilgrimage.”

“A word of advice,” said Asthore, feeling like her story was barely worth one cup of tea, much less the annotations, “My father is Bralis Sadryon, who has moved to Vivec to trade with the Hlaalu. He’s down on his luck—his wealth is squandered—do not do business with him.”

Rilvu nodded and began to collect the teaware. “Thank you.”


	9. To the Fields of Kummu part 2

When Asthore looked back on her Pilgrimage of the Seven Graces, the road to the Fields of Kummu was seldom the most interesting thing she remembered, but still she regarded it fondly as a time of peace. In exchange for some of the caravaners' breakfast, she helped Rilvu and Tildas strap their tents to their guar, and bid them farewell. She was surprised to find that she was a little sorry to see them go. She had not thought she would miss company.

If she had thought the Ascadian Isles hot before, she was unprepared for the next day. It would have not been so bad except for the humidity. The wind, when it blew, blew down from the Ashlands—it was too far to see the mountains, but Asthore could smell heat and ash on the air. The air was hazy, though the sun beat down through it just fine. Asthore stuffed her scarf, as much as would fit, in her satchel, and rolled up her sleeves.

It was a relief when she came to the spot Rilvu had indicated on her map, a shallow place in the river where she could ford. It had taken her all of the morning to reach it: three hours had been a generous estimate on Rilvu's part. Maybe she had meant by guarback.

Asthore wanted to practice her waterwalking spell, but the lure of the water was too strong. She kicked off her shoes, tucked the skirts of her robe into her belt, and waded in. Bliss. The water was sharp and cold and everything she dreamed of: it sent a shudder up through her. Her toes wriggled into soft sand, and as she waded, shoes dry in her hands, she felt the brush of kelp and of small silvery fish that darted about her. On the other side, she sat on a grassy part of the bank that overhung the water, dangling her feet. She ate her lunch, a simple thing of saltrice waybread and crumbled kwama eggs. The haze was lifting. Down to the east were fields of plantations and tall mushrooms, and along the water to the west was Lake Hairan. An enclosed plantation—the Dren Plantation?—was on its north bank, a blue-white smudge of distant walls.

It was too hot to practice firecalling, but she tried a water purification cantrip a healer in Sadrith Mora had taught her. The magic came through her when summoned and the water sparkled and gleamed, weird and bluish. She felt the magic pass into the water, and _shift_ , as if the magic had become jagged, dodging around some form of impediment. A gentle shockwave bounded through her, making all her hairs stand up. She cupped her hands and drank from the river, and realized why it felt odd: the spell was fashioned to melt away the salt of the seas Asthore had grown up around. The water here was freshwater, and the spell was ill-designed for it.

She frowned at her hands. Then she held them out and made the signs that directed magic to water, but she thought fiercely _no salt_ and felt that she could touch the shape of _waterness_. She gentled the magic, as if tugging on a guar's reins, and then let it flow and mingle with the water. The water gleamed blue again, and there was no shockwave.

Asthore drank until she was sated, and the water seemed even sweeter after the success of her modified spell. Then she lay back in the long grasses and smiled to herself, content.

When she felt like it, she slowly and happily got to her feet and set off. She walked through the long grasses by the side of the road until her feet were dry, and then she put on her shoes.

She saw Hlaalu guards in bonemould and other martial types in chitin armours standing with them, in clusters towards the north-west. One cluster was engaged in a shouting match with a well-dressed man holding a khajiiti slave by the arm. Asthore checked her map briefly and was relieved to see that her road took her eastwards, and she hurried away.

She camped when it was dark. She had no tent, no bedroll: she set aside her silver-gilt staff, lay herself in the softest grass she could find, and used her satchel for a pillow. It did well enough, and was much better than a ship's hammock, and her nightmares did not come.

It was late evening the next day that she came upon the banks of Lake Amaya. It was so broad the far bank was a shadow. The water gleamed pink and orange and was sheened in gold, and around her the green grasses seemed blue instead. She made camp beneath a broad emperor parasol, and was glad the next morning that she had, because it rained in the night and she stayed mostly dry.

It took her four days to walk around the eastern curving shore of Lake Amaya to the north where the Fields of Kummu were. Her feet, unused to such hard work, were sore and blistered, and she spent every night soothing them with muttered chants, most of which were not very long-lasting. "I'll toughen up," she growled, not quite believing it but hoping.

She was on the lookout for the shrine when she saw to her astonishment a mer crouched behind a boulder, wearing the fanciest Cyrodiilic clothing she'd ever seen. His frilly shirt and trousers were so white she almost had to squint. He popped up over the boulder, then crouched down again, frantically writing something down on a pad of paper with a raggedy, ostentatiously huge quill.

It was so comical her feet had taken her to the mer before she'd even realized it. "What are you doing?" she asked.

"Shhh!" He spoke in Tamrielic. "Get behind." He pulled a box of writing supplies closer to him. "Crouch down now, before they notice!"

Asthore saw no cause for alarm, but she crouched anyway. She asked, switching from Dunmeris to Tamrielic with reluctance, "Who notices us?"

"The kagouti. Two magnificent specimens! Such markings! They're mating, you know."

Asthore groaned. "By the Shrine? That is a terrible luck. Well, I had best go walk around the long way."

The mer appraised her. Feeling the uncomfortable burn of his regard, she matched him stare-for-stare: a middle-aged mer, with a black goatee, the rest of his face meticulously shaved. His clothing was painfully impractical for Vivec-knew-what nonsense he was up to. His Tamrielic was painfully Imperial-sounding. An outlander Dunmer. What a shame.

"Could you help me?"

Asthore felt her lip curl and stopped herself. "What is it you want?"

"My friend and I are doing field research, but we were separated when the kagouti became enraged. Thoronor. I need to reunite with him, but I am... rather stuck."

Asthore wanted to tell him to throw himself into the lake for an idiot (and also because the kagouti would avoid him if he were swimming), but the 'field research' sounded interesting. She might not like outlanders much, but there wasn't much fault she could find in scholars: that was a profession blessed by Sotha Sil himself.

So she found herself saying, "Very well."

She meant to scout out a safe path, and then lead the mer—Edras—safely around to his friend.

What happened was a breeze sprung up from the wrong direction and one of the kagouti turned from its amorous pursuit and plunged down the to the beach where Asthore had been creeping.

_Fire. Hit it with fire._ Asthore tried to draw up the fire and it fizzled. Her fingertips sparked and quieted. She brought up her staff just as the kagouti lunged, so close its tusks nearly scraped her face.

It backed away, and, as it readied itself for a new charge, Asthore brought the snake-head of her staff down firmly on its nose. It groaned in surprise and skipped back, its tail a-lash, tossing its tusks in a fury.

Now it sidestepped around her warily, and Asthore knew her hit had been lucky: she did not think she could bludgeon the tough-hided kagouti to death. And, too, a regular kagouti seldom backed down from a fight; she had no magic strong enough to demoralize one who was in the violent throes of mating.

So she held out her staff and took this brief moment to look deep inside her, and find what path her magic needed to take to protect her. She saw in her mind's eye a tomb, not the Sadryon Tomb but another, an imagined one, its corridors glowing faintly with pulses of power. "Protect me!" she cried, and thrust out her staff horizontally as the kagouti charged, tangling up its tusks and straining with all her might to keep it from gouging her.

The world whispered and glittered with the faintest shower of sparks, finer and more sudden and ephemeral than those that had sparked when her fire spell had failed her (again). Out of nothingness stepped the gleaming form of an ancestor Asthore did not recognize: a warrior all in old-fashioned armour. Her ghostly hair was a mane of thin braids that whipped in the wrong direction against the wind.

The kagouti twisted its head and Asthore stumbled backwards as her staff came free. Flames roared all around the three: Dunmer, ancestor, and kagouti, and then were funnelled at the kagouti. Asthore stepped backwards, and her ankle was in the water.

The chaos had attracted the next kagouti, who charged into the fray heedless that its mate was burning to death. The ancestor made short work of it with a fire that burned white-hot and wicked. The kagouti were ash before Asthore had her fear under control.

The ancestor turned to her. "You have not the trick of fire. Were you watching me?"

Asthore nodded. Something in her, a very lonely part, lightened with a small joy to be addressed. "I was, great-grandmother." Probably more greats were needed for accuracy, but it seemed cumbersome to say.

"Did you see how my body flows with the force of my spell? You need to relax, or else you will strangle your own power. You will require practice. Do not despair, many-times-my-daughter: yours is a skill meant to grow great."

And then she was gone.

Asthore stood still for a moment, one foot in the sun-warmed waters of Lake Amaya. The advice was a gift unlooked for: an answer to a puzzle, and even praise. Later, when Asthore was somewhere safe and sacred, she would find out which of her ancestors this was, and make her an offering.

The scholars were overjoyed to reunite, but extremely sad that Asthore and her ancestor had ashed the kagoutis. "Keep walking," she advised them dryly, "I have surety you will find more." Kagouti were hardly an endangered species.

They thanked her profusely nonetheless, and gave her a pretty purplish amulet with a pearlescent sheen. It hummed with a very quiet, mild magic, but the spell did not speak to her.

"Thank you very much. Do you know what this is?" she asked them.

Thoronor, a Bosmer with a hideous ratty beard, shrugged. He was much less well-dressed than his partner. "Trinket I picked up once at the market. I think it's rather pretty, but I'm not overly attached, you know?"

Asthore shrugged, put the amulet on its cord into her satchel, and went on her way.

After all that excitement, the shrine was almost disappointing. It was an unassuming triolith amongst the tall grasses, its fresco recently touched up. Asthore laid her messy portion of muck down before it and prayed.

It was hard to feel connected to the shrine, to the story of Vivec and the farmer. Humility? So often, since she had chosen to stay while her family left, she had felt more _humiliation_ than anything else. Her magic was so clumsy, untutored, raw. She was alive, and—she had her ancestors to thank for that. They were great and accomplished and wondrous (on her mother's side, especially), and she was one small part of what they were. Was that humility? To know herself insignificant?

And if it was, why did she feel so frustrated?


End file.
